lb4-2015

“Most people are either stupid or evil, or both.” -Mabon Foo Using Mabon’s statement as my guideline, I would like to explore the question: to what extent do the characters behave like “normal” people? In […]

My presentation question: “So in ‘The Sandman’, Hoffmann REALLY likes to use heat and fire as a motif. He often links it to the overarching theme of perception/vision/eyes…Why is that? How is that? How does it link? WHAT?” As you guys know what happened at our last Freud/Hoffmann seminar, my group and I had a […]

I find both short stories to make considerable use of metaphorical veils, both to hide or to justify acts of morality. These interact with the catastrophes that shape each story, possibly strengthening, creating and altering these veils. I will go through some of the veils that I think are most influential to each story and … Continue reading The Use of Veils in The Earthquake in Chile and Lieutenant Gustl

The two questions from my presentation both involved analyzing Freud’s work: How valid are Freud’s theories of the castration complex and child primary narcissism today? Do you agree with Freud’s view that suppressed desires cause hysteria given Nathaneal’s case from The Sandman? In “The Uncanny” Freud picks apart Hoffman’s short story “The Sandman” along with … Continue reading Questioning Freud→

OKAY SO THIS WAS IN MY ESSAY, AND I JUST CUT IT RIGHT OUT. It was turning into too much of an unsupported conspiracy, which probably came out of bits and pieces from seminar, but I spent time on it so I’m putting it here Perhaps not quite within “inner vision”, but when Nathanael looks […]

Presentation Questions: Both of my questions for today’s presentation are related to understanding ‘the uncanny’ as a word/ as a concept. First of all, what is the relationship between ‘uncanny’ and ‘fear’? During my first reading I failed to see the difference, but based on the the way that Jason explained it in his lecture, […]

Before reading Sigmund Freud’s The Uncanny, the only Heimlich I knew of was the Heimlich maneuver. Though technically the term for the maneuver was named after the first doctor to describe it, it is still interesting to finally find the meaning of the word itself in a totally unrelated work of text. The distinction between…

These were the two questions that I came up with to prompt discussion for Plato’s “Republic”. Although the discussion went on a tangent, I record my initial train of thought below. What kind of society would we have today if Socrates’ censorship of heroes’ flaws or the god’s wrongdoings were employed? Plato’s need for […]

Can Darwinism be considered optimistic or pessimistic? Oh man, I wrote this a while ago and never posted it! :O In Wednesday’s seminar, we discussed this question in small groups, and in my group (which I think consisted of Yun and Karen? Maybe?) we found it to be a really difficult question to answer. We […]